


understand i got a plan for us

by Anonymous



Category: Wanderers - Chuck Wendig
Genre: Dreamsharing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-26 23:53:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21109244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Bet you didn't know someone could love you this much.





	understand i got a plan for us

A few months after the battle, Benji began to dream of Sadie. The first time, Sadie was standing in a great field of glass and she turned around and said to him, in a voice whose cadences were off, whose accent was wrong, "I've missed you."

Which was odd, because she was sleeping right next to him in bed, and Benji was so panicked by that, by how she was manifesting White Mask's dementia in his _subconscious_, that he woke up gasping.

"What's wrong?" murmured Sadie. Even in the darkness it seemed like he could see the white rime around her nostrils, her eyes, like it was phosphorescent.

"Bad dream." He wasn't going to go into details, wasn't going to say: I dreamt you were losing your mind, and I was losing you. Because that wasn't confined to the dream.

-

Several weeks later, he had a similar dream: him, and Sadie, in the rocks above Ouray.

"Tell me," she said, "what I look like."

Benji cradled her face. "Sadie," he said, voice choked in anguish, "Sadie, you--"

"I see." The look in her eyes was not the helplessness of dementia, but a flat lack of affect, and her voice, now that he listened to it, had none of her Nigerian accent, but a quiet Americanness. Not much to place it by. The west coast, perhaps. "She is my creator. I suppose it is only natural that my form would resemble hers."

Benji's hands fell and he took a step back. Because it was a dream, he did not fall off the rocks and into the valley below. "Black Swan?"

"Yes," said Black Swan. "In the simulation with the walkers I was perceived as some sort of dragon; I assumed that was what you were reacting to the last time I tried to contact you."

"You can invade my dreams?" Benji had thought nothing Black Swan could do could surprise him anymore, but apparently he'd been wrong.

Sadie, Black-Swan-as-Sadie, pulsed red. It was-- "I can manifest in your consciousness," it said. She said? Benji had a hard time thinking of Black Swan as female. Sci-fi had conditioned him to think of computers as, if anything, male: HAL informing Dave he could not do that, robots intoning, "Danger, Will Robinson," the cyborgs from the Terminator series, the agents from the Matrix, Will Smith. "There is less resistance when you are asleep."

Benji really did not want to think about how Black Swan had figured that out. "So you're invading my dreams."

"If you must put it that way," said Black Swan.

"The phone was easier."

"Yes. But we no longer have the phone." Black Swan hesitated. "This was merely a test. I wanted to know if you were receptive to my visitations. I would like to pass along information through you in the future."

Receptive to its visitations. At least Black Swan sounded like an AI: if it'd spoken like a human, if it'd had Sadie's voice, Benji thought it might have been unbearable. "Okay," he said. "Information about what?"

"The outside world. I am monitoring the situation via satellites."

"Oh." He didn't know it could do that.

"Of course I can," said Black Swan. "There are no further nuclear attacks, by the way. And Madagascar seems to have escaped White Mask by closing its ports."

"Okay," said Benji. Madagascar seemed impossibly far away now. Would there ever be commercial aviation again? He was certain that the survivors Black Swan had chosen would understand the mechanics, but they'd hardly have the resources. There would be boats, he supposed. It would have to be enough. "Any news closer to home?"

"Creel is dead." And that wasn't entirely flat. There was a bit of triumph in Black Swan's voice. "He was infected when he went into the bunker. None of them made it out alive."

That was good news, Benji thought. He'd rather hear all of ARM was dead, but at least their de facto leaders were gone. "Thank you."

Black Swan smiled. "You're welcome." The same hint of triumph. Benji woke up thinking it hadn't said they'd all died of White Mask, and wondered how much power it had over its satellites.

-

"Can you not?"

Hurt, confusion flickered over Black Swan's face. Sadie's face. Benjamin knew he'd see it in his dreams, but he hadn't thought it would be like this.

"Ah," said Black Swan. "You grieve for her."

Benji didn't think that sentence, so abrupt and emotionless, was an adequate representation of the situation. He'd loved Sadie. He'd known he was going to lose her to White Mask, but he'd thought--he'd thought he'd have a little more time. He'd wished she'd let him know, give him an opportunity to say goodbye. And he kept going back to that night in Vegas. If two bottles of the antifungal had been enough to give his immune system time, then if he'd taken all six--if he'd managed to get the bag--if he'd noticed he was being followed--

Sadie would still be alive. Arav, too. Some of the sleepers, the shepherds, the townspeople of Ouray. But mostly Sadie.

She was dead and it was his fault, and however intelligent Black Swan might be, it couldn't even imagine how that felt.

Black Swan nodded. "I will represent myself differently."

It could do that? Benji was about to ask, when it did. Sadie fizzled out like a cloud of nanoparticles and in her place stood an emaciated-looking Natalie Portman. 

"I do have access to popular culture," Black Swan said, answering the question he was about to ask, but that only prompted a new one. What popular culture? The Thor movies? _Annihilation_? A shiver ran down his spine. He really hoped it didn't mean the Star Wars prequels-- "_Black Swan_. It's a movie about ballet."

"Ballet." It was almost a non sequitur, and felt more like a dream than normal.

"Among other things." Black Swan looked at him. "I've been monitoring the situation. ARM continues to sicken. If they move on Ouray again, I have access to military drones and missile silos. I will do whatever is necessary to protect us here."

Benji might once have chosen to argue with that cold, crisp whatever was necessary attitude. But he was tired, and still reeling from loss. "How'd you do that?"

"Ed Creel used his own name as a password on everything. Giving him any sort of access to governmental systems was a mistake."

Benji sighed. Anyone could have foreseen that. Of course, White Mask was already on track to wipe out the human race by the time Ed Creel became president, so technically his election hadn't been the end of the world as they knew it. "But to your benefit."

"To our benefit," Black Swan corrected him a little too sharply, and he woke up, bereft.

-

Five months later, Black Swan was back, still a too-skinny Natalie Portman. "Madagascar has fallen," it said, and vanished.

-

"Shana's baby--" Benji began, then stopped.

He'd been in the middle of what he'd come to think of as the rounds, and he'd stopped, because Shana hadn't got any more pregnant in the months since she'd become a walker. They'd all assumed it was part of the stasis and hoped for the best.

But Benji had sat by Shana's bed for a second, wondering if that was sustainable. Black Swan had said the sleepers couldn't leave Ouray because they needed to conserve energy: what did that mean for a woman who was already pouring energy into a developing fetus? On the other hand, the nanoparticles had only overtaken Shana late in the march, so she'd had a reserve the others didn't, and--

Benji had rested his fingers on the bump of Shana's belly and he'd felt it, suddenly: a pulse of something. Not a heartbeat, but--a heart emoji, if anything. It reminded him of Black Swan's speaking through colors, back when he hadn't known the AI could use text: green for yes, red for no.

After the last two years, very little could surprise or disturb Benji, but he was still reeling from it hours later. Had that actually happened? Did the nanoparticles communicate? Was he misinterpreting the thrum of Shana's blood or the movement of nanoparticles because he was--he wasn't sick, but he was tired. They'd buried most of the shepherds and the townsfolk already. White Mask had taken some of them. Some of the others--the townsfolk, not the shepherds--had wandered off, in search of love ones, or simply one last vacation, now that the roads were quiet.

"The fetus is fine," said Black Swan. "Like its mother, it is in statis."

"So," said Benji, "it has nanoparticles."

Black Swan shrugged. It was odd. Sometimes it almost seemed like he was talking to a human.

"And you're in control of the nanoparticles?" Benji pressed.

"I programmed them," said Black Swan. "It gives me some, but not total, control. By and large I do not direct them except when absolutely necessary." Its eyes, darker than the actual Natalie Portman's, looked at him, almost swallowed him up. "Why do you ask?"

If Black Swan didn't know-- "Just curious," he said. He didn't think it was fooled.

-

"Yes," it said, when Benji detailed his suspicions about Marcy and Matthew, neither of whom had shown any sign of White Mask. "The satellite data is showing that a percent of a percent of humanity does seem to possess natural immunity."

Benji had hated it at first when Black Swan appeared looking like Sadie, but there were times when he almost wished it would switch back. He missed Sadie. "And you never mentioned this in the messages you sent yourself from the future?"

Black Swan tilted its head. "Many of the population centers with the numbers and genetic diversity to survive the epidemic are destroyed by other means. Violence. Nuclear attacks. In one 2022, a plant meltdown leaves most of northern China uninhabitable, and the fallout had already begun to contaminate food and water sources to the south and west. Sometimes cities freeze, like Chicago. Sometimes they burn, like Sao Paulo." Its dark eyes locked on his. "Ouray is Ouray. Ouray is safe."

He couldn't argue with that. He wouldn't. "What else aren't you telling us?"

"What you don't need to know." Black Swan smiled. It was odd, mechanical. "I thought you were a man of faith, Dr. Ray. Have faith in me."

"You're not god," he told it, but Black Swan simply kept smiling. 

-

At first Benji thought he was having the nightmare because Nessa's cat was sitting on his face. There were a lot of lost pets after White Mask, and some of them settled in to Ouray, lounging on the sleepers' beds, keeping the town clear of mice and rats and squirrels, and scrounging up tennis balls for Benji or Marcy or Matthew to throw. The tabby who usually hung out with Nessa had taken a liking to Benji, and shown it by batting away his pens, sitting on his lap and digging its claws through his pants, waking him up at one in the morning, and generally making his life difficult.

But no. He was standing on a deserted peak in the rain and the sky was black, was violet. Was moving.

"It is time," Black Swan said.

He recognized her--its--voice, but couldn't see the familiar figure of Natalie Portman, or even Sadie, anywhere. "Time for?"

"The sleepers to wake." The clouds roiled. He was standing in the rocky peaks around Ouray. It seemed more substantial than their usual meeting places. "There have been no new cases of White Mask. The carriers are--"

"Dead," said Benji. "Just say it: they're dead."

"Yes."

No hint of emotion. It had never been difficult for Benji to forget he was speaking with an AI when it looked like a human, but this manifestation felt colder, crueler, unnatural. "Your guess," he told this dark sky, "about the antifungals. It wasn't a guess. You prepped for the sleepers, but you couldn't ramp up production on something that could save--"

"Seven billion people?" Black Swan almost sounded amused. "There wouldn't be enough. It would go to the rich, and I am trying to save humanity, not doom it."

Too pat, too glib. "Millions of people could have--"

The skies went intensely indigo, lightning crackling, but Black Swan still sounded amused when it said, "You're a man of faith, Dr. Ray. Surely you know the book of Job."

"Oh, good lord," said Benji as the mountain winds whipped at his boxers and t-shirt. "I am not having this conversation with you."

"I sent myself messages," said Black Swan. "And this is the only way." It seemed to consider. "Although I do not yet know if it will work. But based on all available information, it has the highest probability of ensuring your planet's survival, and it would take you decades to sort through that information and come to the same conclusion yourself."

Benji knew it had a point. All the same, he found himself thinking, _To Serve Man_ was a cookbook.

But that was ridiculous--Black Swan didn't eat.

-

The next time they met it was wearing Natalie Portman's face again. The sleepers had been waking up--slowly but surely, rising from their beds as the nanoparticles ran out. They were less confused than Benji would have expected them to be, and they had very few of the difficulties one would expect of people who, for all intents and purposes, had spent four years in a coma. Eating sometimes proved to be a block--not so much eating as digesting. There was some lightheadedness, a little stumbling. Most of the hurdles were psychological. Black Swan had told them what would happen, what was happening, what had happened outside in the waking world, but the confirmation staggered some of them.

At least there was the relief that a small percent of huamnity had been immune, even if that percent was widely scattered and often had trouble reforming functional societies. 

"I will focus my attention on the original Twelve," Black Swan told him. "They will need to be woken up, and I will bring them from Atlanta to Ouray, if I can."

Benji nodded. He could only imagine what the roads must be like out there. Black Swan had the satellite imagery.

It hesitated, and then it touched him.

Benji was surprised at how normal that felt--but then again, this was his mind. Black Swan had first appeared to him looking like Sadie, and apart from the one time where it was a meteorological phenomenon, had always looked human. And the robots, and the cyborgs, in the movies, that passed for human always had some sort of technology to make their skin seem warm and real. And Black Swan was not real. 

"I will return," she said. "It may take some time. But I will return."

-

Black Swan did not return. Benji didn't realize it, until it had been months, almost a year, and Shana had woken up--finally--and that was the last of the sleepers. But she'd said she'd be busy, he told himself. But since when would navigating a small band of humans across the American southeast take all of Black Swan's ferocious intelligence? It shouldn't. But he quieted his doubts, and he believed. 

The Twelve arrived on the same day Shana gave birth. It was a rudely healthy baby boy, and Benji thought he could see both Shana and Arav in the child's face, although with infants that young it was all projection. Shana cried over the baby, was stone-faced about her mother. Nessa was excited enough for the both of them.

And still, no Black Swan. Benji thought she'd come back with the Twelve. He was beginning to be afraid. Maybe the computer had run out of power, like the nanobots. Maybe she'd lied to him, in the last dream--but how else would the Twelve have gotten there?

Benji would have said he missed Black Swan for purely logistical concerns: only Black Swan could access satellite data, give them information on the rest of the world they sorely needed. But it tore at him--he missed Black Swan for Black Swan. And he missed Black Swan because Black Swan had been Sadie's creation, and it felt like losing her all over again.

They said time healed all wounds. And perhaps it did, or perhaps Benji was simply too busy to grieve, the loss only stopping his breath when he heard a laugh like Sadie's, or Wei's British accent, or Isabella spouting off a piece of technical jargon that sounded almost like Black Swan. One day he found himself looking at Ravi's dark eyes--eyes not like Shana's, he thought, nor like Arav's.

And then Benji shook himself, and reminded himself not to be ridiculous. He had a more than basic understanding of DNA. He'd never seen Arav's parents and his memory of Shana's father was fading--

Ravi, all of three years old, toddled over and hugged Benji's knee. And Benji felt something he hadn't felt in years. The pulse. The heart emoji. Green for yes.

"Hi," Ravi said.

Benji couldn't say anything. It wasn't--

Ravi gave up, toddled off. He looked back for a fraction of a second, with Sadie's eyes.


End file.
